


Desolation Sound

by opensoulsurgery



Series: Tales from Desolation Sound [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Eldritch, F/M, Gen, Hints of sci-fi horror, Horror, Lovecraftian, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychological Horror, Small Towns, Southwestern Gothic, The horrific realization that you are small and It is big, The supernatural and the unexplainable, There's like a hint of romance and it's definitely not the good kind, cosmic horror, small town horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-06-29 19:32:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19837069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opensoulsurgery/pseuds/opensoulsurgery
Summary: Sam Wright is running away to start his life over again. Stevie Brewin wishes she could run away. Is it fate or coincidence that brings them together to fight for the same goal: a fresh start in a place where nobody knows their names.It seems simple save for one thing.The only hitch in their plan is that leaving Desolation Sound is a hell of a lot harder than staying when something doesn't want you gone.





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> If you're actually going to read this than wow, thank you, lmao. Desolation Sound is basically my passion project/pet universe and the story I'm currently writing is only one of many in this awful, no good, very bad town that I want to tell. 
> 
> I guess just a head's up: this is cosmic horror, so it will be weird and it will be uncomfortable sometimes, and there will sometimes be graphic descriptions of body horror/violence/gross stuff. I'll always give a heads up at the top of a chapter if something particularly Awful™ is going to happen, though. It's also a murder mystery, but the protagonists are a shitty Scooby Doo gang.  
> 
> 
> Welcome to Desolation Sound, kids! Try not to stay too long!

* * *

“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.” 

― Edgar Allan Poe

☾

* * *

  
**August 1987** **  
** **The Twin Moons Motel**

☾

Stevie was barely conscious, but she could feel that she was hurting. It felt like she had been hit by a runaway eighteen wheeler, a heavy, dull ache in her body, a sharp ache throbbing against her temples. All of her joints felt stiff like they would break if she moved too quickly from her position. On the ground? She tried to gently feel around surroundings and came back with nothing but dirt, rocks, and twigs. That didn’t make any sense. 

She groggily began to come back to consciousness, and it took her a good five minutes after that before she felt she could even try to get to her feet.

Once she managed it, she looked down at herself and it revealed that she was covered in dirt and dust from head-to-toe, but she was otherwise unscathed. Not a scratch, scrape or bruise anywhere to be seen, and that might normally be good news, but it didn’t explain why her insides felt like someone had reached inside and scrambled them up. 

What the fuck happened to her? 

She took a breath and tried to rewind her memory, but her mind was drawing a blank, probably too hampered by the vicious headache to give her an explanation. Instead, she leaned against a nearby tree and took stock of her surroundings. _Time to put your detective hat on, Brewin,_ she thought.

Alright. Waking up in a ditch in a grove of trees explained why she was covered in dirt, but nothing else about her thinly forested surroundings provided any clues until it dawned on her that the sun was rising. She stopped and stared at the horizon through the trees, her expression pinched together in confusion. That wasn’t right, but why? Why wasn’t it right that the sun was rising? Stevie clenched her eyes shut, trying to will the memories back in place this time, unblur them from the thick fog that made them hard to see.

Still nothing. 

She groaned, then turned around, spotting a building in the near distance. Getting anywhere but where she was felt like the smart idea, and she stiffly began to move through the sparse aspen trees.

As she drew closer to the building, she realized it was the motel and that was when her memory began to slowly clear up.

She had been at work doing the night shift she did every damn night. It was Thursday, or… _Was_ it Thursday? She glanced towards the horizon, the sky fading into soft blues and oranges as the sun continued to rise. Okay, no, nevermind, it had to be Friday morning. So, that would make the sketchy couple she checked out shortly after her shift started the last thing she remembered doing. After that? There had nothing. Was she robbed? Drugged? 

Was it _aliens_? 

The thought that it could have been made her a little giddy. Wouldn’t _that_ be a hell of a story to tell? Despite how much pain she was in, a grin managed to tug at the corners of her lips – but it quickly faded when she stepped onto the motel property. It felt like she had to push through a tangibly thick fog, and her ears popped with enough force to make her head spin. What the fuck was _that_?

She had to double over a bit, one hand coming to wrap around her torso as she fought against the bile rising in her throat. Okay, if aliens did turn out to be behind this than she’d need to have a talk with them about not taking it so far next time, _thanks_. Stevie hesitantly glanced over her shoulder, but there was nothing there. Just the forest and behind that where nothing grew, the endless desert. 

She shook her head to clear it and reprioritized herself. She hoped to God that Nick hadn’t shown up yet to find her gone from the office. It’s not like this place ever got much business, but God forbid an employee step outside for some fresh air. The old bastard was insufferable to work for. 

She muttered a quiet prayer to whoever out there felt like listening and limped around the corner of the building. Nick’s car was parked in the lot. _Shit_ . Why did he have to always come in so _early_? She knew she missed a lot of time, but she knew with how little the sun had risen it couldn’t even be six. She tried to wipe the grime off her face, and then pushed open the door to the office, steeling herself for a verbal lashing. The bell hanging above the door rang. 

“Hey, Nick. I–”

Her words fell away into a choking gasp.

As she expected, Nick was there, and he _was_ staring at her, but not her standing by the door. He was staring at her that was sitting, slumped over the front desk, blood pooling underneath her cheek, her eyes staring vacantly at nothing. It was her, but it wasn’t. It was her, but she was dead.

But if she was dead there than how was she here? Still breathing, still thinking. Still alive. The unreality of the scene made her knees feel weak, and the bile she felt rising outside returned. 

Her mind reeled as it desperately tried to grasp onto something that could make sense of the scene, but her thoughts were running into each other and nothing made sense. It had to be a joke or… Or a dream! Maybe it was all a horrible dream. Maybe she fell asleep at work and she’d wake up behind the desk totally alive at any second and laugh it off. 

Then Nick noticed her by the door and he screamed. 

It was a terrible and confused scream, and any hope that she’d wake up fell away into the abyss of silence that followed. For a moment, everything around her came screaming to a halt. _Oh, okay_ , she thought to herself. _It’s not a dream. Oh._

Then, like someone cranked up the radio for a really good song, the strangeness of what was in front of her hit her in a second, harder wave. 

Her ears filled with a buzzing panic, her heart – _hers_ – slammed against her chest so hard she thought it would burst. Her hands trembled. Her boss was trying to say something to her, but she couldn’t hear him over the static. Maybe he wanted to know why she wasn’t in the office when he got here. She took a step inside and tried to find a decent sounding excuse that she hadn’t already used. Maybe she should take up smoking for the breaks. The room began to darken. Her boss backed away from her.

Then she realized he was also backing away from _it_. 

Her dead body. 

She blinked and snapped back into herself. 

She had come to a stop right in front of her corpse, near enough to smell the congealing blood and see the ashen pallor of her copy’s skin. Stevie swallowed and tried to look away. Whatever it was she was trying to say didn’t matter anymore. Not when she was more up close and personal with her corpse than she ever thought she would be. 

The room continued to dim. Her knees began to buckle. Her mind continued to reel. 

_God_ , she thought, _I wish it had been aliens._

And then she was out, crumpled on the floor like she had been in the ditch outside, still breathing and still alive. Just unconscious. 

The other her remained dead and still and silent.


	2. CHAPTER ONE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chick working at the motel is kind of weird, right?

☾

**August 2018**

Sam Wright was running. 

He wasn’t running from the cops or something nearly as exciting and dramatic. He was running away from his life. His entire life. Sam had packed up his life into the backseat of his car, pawned off the rest, and then drove out of Tucson without saying goodbye to a single soul, not even to his girlfriend–or ex-girlfriend now, he guessed. He’d been gone for a week, and she’d only tried calling him three times. He never answered once and she stopped calling. 

Sam found himself oddly relieved. He had only been on the road for a week and he knew it was a stupid idea to fool himself into it, but he felt good about this. It was a fresh start, and he could choose to start it wherever he damn well pleased. That meant a lot of driving down solitary highways and through dying towns. It was a lot of cheap gas station food, too. 

But the desolate scenery and back pain from sitting in a car all day had been worth it so far. 

For one thing, he was clean. He was a little over a week sober, but it counted for something when he hadn’t been sober for very long the last three years of his life. Every day blurring into the next through the thick haze of a chemical fog. When he woke up in the hospital, oxygen mask affixed to his face, he saw through that fog. _It was my only chance to leave_ , he thought, his jaw clenching as he shoved away the thought. If he spent too much time thinking about his sobriety he only felt worse, so he shook it from his head. He wanted to pretend like that part of his life had never existed. 

He’d been driving since a little after the sun rose that day, and the exhaustion of watching the scenery roll past in a loop of dusty mountains, dry washes, and abandoned gas stations was creeping up on him. He struggled to fight off his body’s desire to close his eyes and drift off for a couple minutes. Just a couple minutes. That’s all. Just–

His eyes snapped open just as the car began to drift into the opposite lane. Sam yanked the wheel back into his lane with his heart caught in his throat. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered, smacking himself against the cheek as if it would be enough to keep him going for another couple hours on the road. Thank fuck there was nobody else on the road. Even the sun had left him, dipping below the horizon hours ago. The stars glittered like diamonds in its place. 

A city limit sign whipped past his car in welcome relief. His quick glance showed him it read: 

_Welcome to Desolation Sound!_

_Home of Athene Nuclear Generating Station._

_Population: 1648_

Not a big town by any stretch, but big enough to hopefully have a motel. On top of his exhaustion, an irritating ache growing in his lower back was begging him to get out of the car. 

The highway seemed to stretch on and on, not a single sign of civilization in sight. Whoever named this place named it well. The sky was a vast expanse ahead of him, dark except for the pinpricks of light shining through. It felt like driving into the mouth of an enormous cave.  
  
And then a motel appeared. 

A flickering neon sign indicated there were rooms available, and Sam pulled in without really thinking about it. There were no cars in the parking lot which wasn’t usually a good sign, but as long as the room had a bed he didn’t care. 

Sam stepped out of the car for the first time in hours and stretched his arms over his head with a groan, glancing up at the sign that loomed over the highway. The Twin Moons Motel, huh? Sam couldn’t help but look for the moon. It hung low, just above the horizon, but it was alone. Obviously. He shook his head. Fuck, he was tired. 

Through a front window, Sam could see a laptop sitting on an empty desk, the wall behind it holding two rows of keys. One set was missing from the collection. 

Sam began to push open the door, a bell hanging above it ringing in his arrival, but the greeting he expected came from behind him. 

“Hi there. Hi. Can I help you?” 

Sam glanced back to see a blonde woman stepping out of the first room, dusting something off her hands against her shorts. A baggy band shirt hid her frame, and her hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail with a bandana tied at the front to keep loose strands from getting in her eyes. She exhaled as if she had just gotten done with some heavy lifting, then lifted her hand in greeting. 

He glanced around the empty lot, then back at her. She was the only other person here, so— 

“You work here?” 

“Mhm.” She nodded, pulling the door shut behind her. When she turned, the light outside the room revealed a thick, ropey-looking scar snaking around her neck like a gruesomely permanent necklace. It was hard to keep from staring at. It was jagged around the edges, giving him the unsettling impression of someone struggling to slice through a thick cut of meat. 

Shock must have shown on his face because she eyed him carefully. “–You need a room?” she asked, her voice forcing him to turn his eyes up to meet her dark ones. Only an idiot wouldn’t be able to tell she didn’t appreciate having the scar gawked at. Sam cleared his throat, fixing his expression into something impassive and bored. 

He arched an eyebrow, hoping to cut through the tension with a joke. “I mean, this is a motel, right?” 

Her face scrunched up a bit. He waited, but she remained silent, and it took everything in him to not let out an irritated groan. What did a guy have to do to get a room around here? “Do you want me to say please or something?” 

She hesitated for what felt like an eternity, looking like there was something that she needed to say, then shook her head. “No.” She cracked a weak smile and held the office door open for him. “Sorry. I just don’t usually get people pullin’ in this late. Come in.” 

The office was air conditioned–and thank fuck for that–but somehow it was still musty. Stale, like the s same air had been recycled through there for years already. Sam’s nose wrinkled, but it wasn’t like he was expecting a five-star experience. His back just needed a break from sleeping in his car. 

The manager slipped behind the desk to pass him a clipboard holding a short form. “Fill that in for me real quick, and I’ll grab you a key.” 

Sam leaned against the desk to fill out the form, scribbling in the blanks with his near illegible writing. From the corner of his eye, he noticed a van pull around from behind the motel. It was white with some illegible writing on the side. Pretty nondescript. “I thought I was the only one here,” he said with a nod towards the departing vehicle.

She watched as the van made a left onto the highway, then said, “Maintenance. Just takin’ care of a few things.”

Sam glanced at her with an eyebrow raised. “ _This_ late?” 

A loose strand of hair fell free from her bandana as she tilted her head and shrugged impassively. “It’s his schedule, not mine,” she said. “As long as the job gets done I don’t really care. It’s fifty bucks, by the way.” 

He slid the clipboard back, then pulled out the payment in a crumpled handful of fives, tens, and twenties from his pocket. He was down to his last couple hundred dollars which meant he’d have to pick up some work soon. Okay, maybe leaving in such a rush was a stupid idea, but there was no way he was turning back now. The manager counted out the cash, then slid it into the till with what looked like reluctance. He would’ve thought someone running a place this dead would’ve been thrilled to see any kind of business. She turned away from him and grabbed a key.

“Room two is yours,” she said, dangling it out towards him. She smiled, but it looked more like a grimace. “G’night.” 

☾

The next morning he re-entered the musty office with his duffel bag slung from his shoulder. The blonde woman from the night before was behind the desk again. She glanced up from her phone at his arrival, exhaustion seeping from her entire being. “Mornin’,” she said, raising her mug in greeting. The scent of coffee hit his nose and he was hit with a craving for his own to cut through the sluggish haze of his thoughts. “Sleep well?” 

_No_ , he thought bitterly. He was exhausted last night and managed a few hours of shuteye after crashing, but if there was one thing he couldn’t run from it was his insomnia.

Sam debated between giving her a stock smile and answer, but decided that the bags under his eyes had probably already given away the truth if the look on her face was anything to go by. He sighed. “Nope,” he said, shaking his head tiredly. He hitched his bag up further, then dropped his room key onto the desk. “I got maybe three hours, so I could use some coffee. And food.” His stomach rumbled in agreement. It wouldn’t let him get back on the road until he ate something that wasn’t from a gas station. “Does this place have a diner or something?” 

She stared at the keys for a lingering moment, then turned her gaze back up, her eyes seeming to search his face for something. “Is there something on my face?” he asked bluntly.

An embarrassed blush lightly spread across her cheeks, and her brow furrowed in both apology and frustration – but then like someone had switched a flipped she was smiling sheepishly at him. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep all that great either. My coffee still isn’t doing its job.” She laughed breezily, cutting her mug a sidelong look before collecting the key. “But, uh”–she hung the key back onto its hook–”Yeah. There’s a place down the street. It’s called Marisol’s. Impossible to miss.” 

“Thanks,” he said, throwing his hand up in a wave as he turned towards the door. He pulled it open, letting in a rush of dry New Mexican heat, when she called out to him. 

“So, you’re leaving,” she said when he glanced over. It was more a statement of fact than a question. His brows furrowed.

“Do a lot of people come here to visit? ‘Cause, like, I don’t get the impression that a lot of people stick around this place.” He hadn’t even driven through the town proper yet and he already knew to expect yet another American wasteland. 

She easily conceded the truth with a grim smile. “Alright, I’ll give you that. Where’re you headed?” 

“Colorado.” But beyond that? He didn’t have a goddamn clue. Maybe he’d go up to Wyoming or east towards Kansas. Hell, maybe whatever place he was looking for would be in Colorado. Who knows. 

“Colorado,” she echoed, rolling the word around her mouth as if to feel it out, her gaze drifting off wistfully to some middle distance beyond him. She tilted her head, her hair sweeping away to reveal the scar on her neck. The sight of it made his skin crawl. “I’ve always wanted to go.” 

“Who’s stopping you?” When she glanced back at him, her hair was swept back into place and he looked away.

She smiled and shook her head. It looked more like the grimace she gave him the night before. “A lot of things,” she said stiffly. She shrugged and turned her attention back towards her phone, leaving it at that. She must have seen him staring at her scar again. “See you around.”

Sam took that as his cue to leave and stepped out into the day's already unforgiving heat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Chuck Tingle voice) Dang! 
> 
> You made it to the end of chapter one! I'm honestly super nervous about posting this, but much like our dear protagonist there's no turning back now. I hope you enjoyed it and I swear it'll get creepy soon. 
> 
> For those of you who enjoyed it enough to want more, well, I don't have a set update schedule, but I hope to have a chapter out at least every two weeks. Alas, I can be a mad slow writer. But anyway - leave a review if you'd like, I'd really appreciate it, and thank you for reading! You're the best.


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